The present invention relates to an elevating mechanism that provides a supporting force to a patient or an aged having weak legs, so that the patient or the aged could sit on or stand up from a toilet without the help of an attendant.
When a person becomes older, his or her physiological functions would degrade gradually. The aged bones and muscles would result in spongy bones and reduced bone and muscle supportability. That is why old people move slower than the youth and feel laborious to sit down and stand up.
Sitting down and standing up are two movements that necessarily occur when people go to the toilet. For old people who move slowly and patients who have injured leg or legs, it is necessary to have an attendant to help them sit down and stand up in the course of using the toilet. However, to excrete is a private behavior and involves in dirty excretions. Most people would prefer to use the toilet alone without someone else standing beside him or her. The old men and/or the patients failing to do so would feel depressed, useless, or even lose the courage to live.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide an automatic elevating mechanism that is able to ascend and forward incline a seat, so as to lift an aged or a patient sat on the seat to an almost upstanding position. The aged or the patient does not need to support his or her weight completely by two legs and could stand up from a sitting position on the toilet with less energy. The automatic elevating mechanism of the present invention may also gradually descend and lay the seat into a horizontal position to help the aged or the patient rested on the seat to move into a completely sitting position from an upstanding position.
To achieve the above and other objects, the elevating mechanism according to the present invention for assisting an aged or a patient in using the toilet alone mainly includes a base, a seat, and two armrests. The base includes left and right side frames connected to each other via front and rear crossbars. The two side frames are respectively and symmetrically provided with four links and an extension arm. The two armrests are pivotally connected to some of the links on the side frames via two arm supports. The seat is fixedly supported on the links on the two side frames. The extension arms may be actuated with push buttons to lift or lower the links and thereby ascend or descend the seat and the armrests.
The seat is provided with a central opening to function like a toilet seat. When the seat is fully descended, it is in a completely horizontal position for a user to sit thereon. When the seat is gradually ascended, it also gradually inclines forward to move the user from a sitting position to an almost upstanding position. The seat in the ascended and forward inclined position enables the user to conveniently move toward or away from the toilet.
The two armrests in the elevating mechanism of the present invention are always maintained in a horizontal position in the course of lifting or lowering the links, so as to always provide safe and stable support to the user.